OD book

How to Create a Resilient and Positive Culture in the Workplace An OD practitioner’s guide to developing performance, wellbeing and agility using the mental toughness framework EDITED BY: DOUG STRYCHARCZYK AND PETER CLOUGH

Copyright © 2023 AQR International All rights reserved. ISBN: 9798396673229

\"Make the best use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens\". Epictetus (AD 50—135)

How to Create a Resilient and Positive Culture in the Workplace. iv

CONTENTS Acknowledgments vii Introduction 1 1 Mental toughness and its application in Organisation 4 Development 2 Integrating mental toughness as part of a leadership and 18 staff development programme to improve organisational resilience, positivity, wellbeing and performance 3 Culture and organisational design using the 4Cs Mental 28 Toughness concept and MTQ measures 4 Using mental toughness to support organisational 53 transformation 5 Creating sales teams with a new culture within a major global organisation through an award-winning programme 69 6 Using the 4Cs Mental Toughness framework and MTQ 81 measures in sales and cultural situations 7 Impact of formal and non-formal leaders in an organisation based on their mental toughness profile 99 8 A resilience-based model for high performing teams 116 9 Mental toughness and Issues in Organisational 140 Development 10 Conclusions - wrapping it all up in 10 Lessons 153 Bibliography 158 About the Authors 160

How to Create a Resilient and Positive Culture in the Workplace. vi

How to Create a Resilient and Positive Culture in the Workplace. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This book is a by-product of a huge volume of work carried out around the globe by partners and clients who have been willing to pioneer the application of the mental toughness concept to the development of organisations and the cultures. And have done so with amazing success. There are too many individuals to mention but the following are worthy of special mention: Neil Scales, DG Queensland Roads and Transport; Zoe Sweet, Director, UK Ministry of Justice; Gaynor Lewis, Director, InstLM; Dean Gale and Jo Pollard, Directors, Phuel. Special thanks, too, go to Monika Czwerenko and Claudine Rowlands of AQR International who have provided all the back- room support for this project, including adding their creativity. vii



INTRODUCTION WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF THIS BOOK? The 4Cs Mental Toughness concept is one of the most important advances in people and organisation development today. Although long understood to be important, because it is largely invisible, it is only now that we are beginning to understand exactly what it is and what are its components. Together with the MTQPlus measure it provides practitioners of all types with a remarkable capability to develop those people and organisations. As a comparatively new understanding of a concept, it is always the case that practitioners welcome support, guidance and insights on how to apply the concept in their work. This book seeks to address this for those engaged in organisation and culture development as well as change management where these are elements to be managed. It also seeks to address challenge which is becoming increasingly important in the 21st Century – how to optimise the way the organisation works? As we moved from the “command and control” era of the 20th Century, we now see a great emphasis on engagement, on delegation, on empowerment and on collaboration. This in turn means that the relationship between the organisation and its people changes an understanding the 1

interplay between culture, leadership and the individual matters. And it needs to be managed. For this, we need a framework and the ability to generate relevant data to provide at least part of the solution (this doesn’t address every aspect of OD) which is fundamentally an important part of the solution. The book has been created by harnessing the experience and expertise of a range of authors who between them have applied the concept in a range of setting around the world. They share they experiences. Ideas and solutions as well as highlighting some of the obstacles. Their CVs are shown elsewhere in the book. 2

CONTEXT The purpose in this book (and others in the series) is to equip practitioners with a reasonably comprehensive and practical overview of the 4Cs Mental Toughness concept and the MTQPlus to apply it with confidence in what they do. In this case sharing knowledge, approaches, tools and techniques to: ▪ Understand and prepare for the challenges inherent in OD and Culture development. ▪ Apply themselves effectively to that role, being the best they can be for their client. All the authors wish the reader every success and are happy to be contacted if there is desire to know more. 3

1 MENTAL TOUGHNESS AND ITS APPLICATION IN ORGANISATION DEVELOPMENT Doug Strycharczyk There are many definitions of Organisation Development. For example, The Chartered Institute of Personal Development (CIPD) defines organisational development (OD) as the ‘planned and systematic approach to enabling sustained organisation performance through the involvement of its people’ (CIPD, Organisational design and development). In this book, we are focused on the people dimension. What we are addressing is the culture of an organisation in terms of the way people in the organisation respond when events occur. Culture is somewhat like personality. We define an individual’s personality by talking about their default responses to what happens to them or around them. Until recently that has focused on behaviour. Largely, this is because we can comparatively easily observe behaviour. The same is often true in attempts to define and measure an organisations culture. With the development of the 4Cs Mental Toughness concept, we have come to understand, when dealing with individuals, that there is another dimension to personality that is important. Arguably, it is more important than simply understanding behaviour given that it has a significant influence on behaviour. The 4Cs Mental Toughness concept addresses how we think when things happen to us and around us. How we think has a very significant influence on our behaviour. It contributes to understanding why we behave the way we do when events occur. 4

We now understand that the 4Cs Mental Toughness concept consists of 4 constructs (the 4Cs): Control, Commitment, Challenge and Confidence. In turn, these are composed of 8 independent factors: Life Control, Emotional Control, Achievement Orientation Goal Orientation, Risk Orientation, Learning Orientation, Confidence in Abilities and Interpersonal Confidence. When aggregated using the Mental Toughness Questionnaire, MTQPlus, this framework can provide a valuable insight into the pattern of mental toughness within a group whether it is a team, division, department or the whole organisation. The 8 factors broadly describe key aspects of resilience and positivity - the ability to deal with setbacks and the capability to be optimistic about an uncertain future. These are components of most organisation's desired culture. The 4Cs Mental Toughness concept provides a lens through which this can be assessed and explored, and usefully linking the individual and their needs to the organisaton and its needs. Culture can be described as the “personality” of an organisation – but much of it may be hidden. Organisational culture has been described as “the way things are done around here” (Deal & Kennedy, 2000). That is largely describing behaviour -it is focussing on the observable. However, Culture also reflects issues such as values, beliefs, as well as assumptions made about the environment in which the organisation operates. One of these more hidden foundations of an organisation’s culture is mindset. We are now beginning to understand that the collective mindset or attitude of a workforce is an important component of culture. Mental Toughness is a concept that explains how we describe mindset or attitude in individuals and thus provides a way to explore these often-hidden depths. 5

The first step when trying to better understand the underpinning of culture is to describe what we mean by culture. This can be tricky because we can talk about Organisational Culture in general, but it can mean different things specifically when applied to different organisations. There are many descriptions of organisational culture, whilst there may be broad consensus about what organisational culture means there is much less agreement about what are the components of organisational culture. When it comes to granularity, understanding the detail behind the concept, the tendency is to reflect more closely the particular interests of particular groups or organisations. Nevertheless, a casual review of published models and descriptions of organisation culture suggests that there are recurring core themes that are present in most, if not nearly all, models. These broad themes can be broadly aligned with the eight factors in the 4Cs Mental Toughness concept. Particularly where in the past globalisation has created benefits, we can now see that it has created vulnerabilities in terms of supply chains. This is illustrated in Fig 1 below. 6

Fig. 1: The 4Cs Mental Toughness concept and key aspects of Organisational Culture The element of Control describes the extent to which there is a sense of having sufficient control of self and circumstances to feel that important objectives can be achieved. 7

Life Control sits comfortably with the idea of “self-worth” and accountability – often described as a “can do” ethos – which appears in most descriptions of culture. Similarly (rational) Decision Making appears in most descriptions, capturing an aspect of purposefulness. A degree of emotional management should enable more rational and more objective decisions which will guide an organisation towards its goals. The link with Commitment is comparatively easy to see. Most OD models and descriptions of culture embrace the idea of clarity of purpose, focusing on what is important as well as the motivation to make the effort needed to achieve, often, very demanding goals. Where Control and Commitment address the operational requirements of culture, Challenge and Confidence address more philosophical aspects. Challenge describes the response to change, to crisis and to innovation - pushing boundaries. All are significant features of the global economy in the 21st Century and will remain so. We even have an acronym for this – VUCA – describing the world as Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous. This translates into a requirement for agility – the ability to recognise change, to view it optimistically and to be able to adapt quickly to whatever those new demands are. The idea of a learning organisation has, for some time now, featured in, most descriptions of organisational culture. It captures the sense of being open to the idea that individuals and organisations have many experiences in the course of their work which, good and bad, are valuable learning opportunities. 8

Organisations will often describe the value of having a continuous improvement ethos which, both, aids organisations in their development and helps the organisation avoid repeating avoidable mistakes. Finally, organisations will talk about developing a spirit in the organisation – a sense of belief possessed by organisation that enables it to trust in its abilities and is supported by a cohesion within its ranks which gives it an advantage in thriving in the so called VUCA world. This is often represented by the ideas of building capability and of building teamworking as key aspects of OD and core elements of culture. This is not necessarily a comprehensive exploration of what everyone understands by culture. However, it provides an illustration of how we can use the 4Cs Mental Toughness concept to connect the individual mindset with the collective mindset. This has many lessons for business leaders and practitioners. If we have a systematic picture of the desired culture, we can begin to assess how well are individuals aligned with this. What does that mean? If there is an issue, how can we use this information to address it? How can we use this to guide organisation development? One of the advantages of the research around the 4Cs Mental Toughness concept has been the development of the MTQ psychometric measures – especially the MTQPlus. They provide a way of measuring aspects of the organisation that may appear intangible – in other words, making the invisible visible. 9

The MTQ measures are normative which means that we can aggregate the mental toughness profiles for the members of a group to produce a profile for the group. Each of the scales will not show a single point but will show a mean score and the distribution of scores within that group. Together these can provide very valuable information. They should contribute significantly to understanding why the organisation behaves the way it does. This, in turn, helps develop a number of questions that are important to the practitioner. The practitioner is most often concerned with aligning the culture of the organisation with its vision, mission, and strategies. When misaligned we engage in culture change programmes. Notoriously these are amongst the most difficult types of change programmes. Yet, if culture is misaligned and not remedied, the results can be very damaging. One of the first questions could be: ▪ From where does culture come? ▪ Is it just down to the individuals in that culture or is it influenced by leaders and managers? ▪ In other words, it could be a product of the mental toughness of senior leaders, or it may reflect the collective characteristics of the group? If the practitioner can understand this, it may be possible to work out where and how change needs to be initiated and developed. Ultimately, it can also help to describe the desired culture. 10

In practice, one thing we can see consistently is that the level of mental toughness in the senior leadership group is very often reflected in the levels of mental toughness at successive levels in the organisation. The more mentally tough those at the top of an organisation, the more mentally tough are those over which they have direct influence. In organisations we find that recorded mental toughness levels increase with the seniority of staff. A 2008 study* showed that levels of mental toughness increased between staff, junior manager, middle manager and senior manager. We see the same pattern in education, where the same seems to apply in general. The more mentally tough the senior leadership teams, the more mentally tough are the teaching staff and the more mentally tough the students/pupils. This makes some sense. We know that some (around half) of one’s mental toughness is strongly influenced by our genes (nature). The rest, still significant, is learned from our experiences in our journey through life (nurture). So, if we spend a significant amount of time in the presence of people who are more mentally tough, it is possible that we will learn from that and accept mentally tough responses as the norm. This confirms that developing the culture of an organisation, at least the mental toughness aspects of its culture, is most effectively achieved on a “top down” basis. Is this always the case? Not necessarily. It can, on rare occasions, be seen that the mental toughness levels of people within the organisation can be higher than the mental toughness levels of people at the top. This can shape the culture and thus the OD challenges. So why could this happen? 11

One explanation might be that we can often see that seniority in an organisation is closely related to age. So, the senior managers may be significantly older than lower levels who come from a different generation. In one example, the senior leaders were also close to retirement and had become averse to change – they did not want to “rock the boat”. Another could be that there is change in another aspect, mentioned earlier, the organisation moves from an operation led culture to a sales/marketing led culture or, often in the public sector, it moves from an administrative culture to a more customer focused culture. Those shifts can influence the types of people who may prosper when those shifts occur. Sometimes creating “the unintended consequence.” In one case study we saw an organisation determined “to raise its game”. The senior leadership group understood this but had for many years adopted a policy of small steps and gradual development. That had worked. Circumstances now required that there needed to be a more proactive response to events. A new middle management group was created which bought into this new challenge. Confident, driven to deliver better results and happy to accept the challenge they set about the task only to find that the senior leadership group was often restraining them, preaching the need for caution and careful actions. Using the MTQ measure, we assessed those involved (including more junior managers) and found that the average mental toughness level of the middle managers was higher than the level within the senior management group. Looking at the differences for each factor it identified where clashes might occur and therefore why the change programme was failing to deliver its objectives. Closer investigation and the 12

use of focus groups revealed that these were indeed the reasons why clashes were occurring. The middle managers were keener to achieve change more quickly than were their seniors. Once out in the open, it was possible to gain agreement about what the issues were and from that to develop and introduce plans to address the issues and to begin to achieve the original objectives. It was also possible to create awareness about the differences in perception of control between the two levels which emerged as the main source of conflict. Senior leaders felt that they were losing control – they had not fully grasped the implications of delegation and empowerment - and the middle leaders felt they were asked to do things without having sufficient control of their circumstances to do so. Once understood, explored, and acted upon, within 12 months, the organisation was close to achieving its goals. This brings us neatly to team working. Often identified as a desirable aspect of an organisation's fabric and just as often misunderstood. We can see teamworking described in a set of competencies which is interpreted as “building my team.” Whilst this is achievable and even desirable, it risks creating ‘silo’ management. More valuable is the idea of “building one team” – supporting a team working across the organisation and between its many sub-teams. This outcome is very desirable, but it does not always work. One reason for this can often be that those in the team are not self-aware about their own mental approach to the team and its members. For example, they can sometimes be less tolerant with those who approach an event with a different approach. 13

When faced with a difficult task, the mentally tough in a team might think, and even say, “I can do it, why can’t you?” The mentally sensitive might think “I am being careful. I do not know if I am ready. You are pushing too hard...” This is clearly not conducive to teamworking. This illustrates two aspects of awareness that are important in an organisation. ▪ Firstly, self-awareness about who I am and what I bring to the organisation. Importantly, is there a consequence that diminishes that contribution and how can I optimise my contribution? ▪ Secondly, awareness of others and who they are and how they respond to me and the needs of the team/organisation. The question then becomes ‘What can I do to optimise their contribution’? This approach may address an aspect of diversity and inclusion that has the potential to be overlooked. Rejecting others or dealing with others differently because they think differently to the way you do, is damaging to individuals and the organisation. It is almost invisible, but it is no less damaging. Research shows that the mentally sensitive, in general but not always, are creative in a different way to the mentally tough. The former arguably more intuitive and the latter sometimes more structured and logical (although neither is always the case). Optimising the creative potential in an organisation means harvesting all this creativity in its different forms and ensuring it is integrated effectively. Somewhat related to this is the phenomenon of convergent and divergent thinking. The mentally sensitive are more likely to adopt convergent thinking – go with the flow. The mentally 14

tough are more likely to adopt divergent thinking, challenging what is emerging and what is being adopted. Both have their merits – but both need the other to fully function. In conclusion The 4Cs Mental Toughness concept (and MTQ measures) can bring light to bear on this and other hidden thoughts, feelings and attitudes. The 4Cs Mental Toughness Framework provides a lens through which two key aspects of an organisations culture can be directly examined and explored Its resilience - the ability of the organisation and its people to be able to deal with the setbacks and shocks that are so common In the 21st century and which can occur at alarming speed. Its positivity - the ability of the organisation and Its people to remain optimistic even in trying times, to learn from adversity, to see where opportunity lies and to have the confidence in its capabilities to grasp those opportunities and to make the most of them. The concept and the framework also has a relevance which enables It can shed a valuable and useful light on most OD issues and challenges such as building trust, developing psychological safety, leadership, creativity and innovation, etc. as provide the \"glue\" which enables all to be linked to develop a \"joined up\" approach to organisation development. The Mental Toughness Questionnaire, MTQPlus, and the other MTQ questionnaires, bring the capability to measure something important which is typically “invisible” both in people 15

and in organisations, and brings the capacity for a deeper and more nuanced diagnosis of the challenges. The measures also provide the capacity to measure change after an event or intervention and to assess where, in terms of the 8 factors, that change has impacted. The 8-factor framework enables a degree of nuance. Change rarely occurs across the board. For example, once we aggregate the data to produce a group or organisational picture of the levels of mental toughness (by factor) in the organisation we can, provided we have gathered the data, analyse the data in a number of additional ways to provide additional insight into what might be going on in the organisation. Most often this will embrace: Gender – are there differences between males and females. Given that studies generally show mental toughness profiles for males and females are statistically the same, identifying where differences do arise can be especially useful. Age – are there differences between different age groups/generations. Often hypothesised as a source of difference, data does not always uphold this. Length of Service - do more recent recruits adopt a different approach to employees who have been with the organisation for some time Level in Organisation – are there differences between levels. Research shows that there generally are progressive increases as we go higher in the organisation. 16

Function/Department – do different types of activities demonstrate differences in mental toughness levels, especially at the factor level. Location – do different locations reveal differences in attitude to work and to dealing with people. This may be of particular value in multicultural organisations or settings. There are many others, but those briefly described above are the most commonly explored. It is important to note they are often combined as they clearly interact with one another. Finally, in this chapter, a word about the other OD. Organisational Design describes a systematic approach to identifying and aligning structures, processes, culture, leadership, staff practices and desired outcomes in organisations. This enables organisations to create organisation structures and environments which optimise the opportunity for success. Given that culture, leadership, and the way that people respond to their occupational challenges is central to successful design, understanding mental toughness at the individual, group and organisational levels can again be very valuable. 17

2 INTEGRATING MENTAL TOUGHNESS AS PART OF A LEADERSHIP AND STAFF DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME TO IMPROVE ORGANISATIONAL RESILIENCE, POSITIVITY, WELLBEING AND PERFORMANCE Maureen Keegan As stated in the previous chapter “mental toughness is a concept that explains how we describe mindset or attitude.” These factors can be easy to recognise but arguably be just as hard to define. They are however major influences on organisational culture and development. As an OD Practitioner in both the Public Sector and in Higher Education for many years I recognised that there had to be a way to explain this to individuals as part of a Leadership Development Programme to support individual and collective growth and achievement. Enabling individuals to reflect on how they react or respond to situations and if they want to change to get a better result. This chapter explores how the mental toughness concept can be applied in an OD context and, as important, illustrate how easily it can be integrated with other approaches to increase the effectiveness as an enabler of each. This is where the story of how the Integrated Resilience Leadership programme was developed. It resonates with many of the concepts discussed in the last chapter. As I was getting ready to present to the 120 top managers in a local authority in the U.K, I could hear whispers circulating around the room. “What did you get?” one man asked a worried 18

looking woman. They were discussing their results from a recent Mental Toughness Questionnaire (MTQ48) they had completed as part of a Senior Leaders Development programme. It sounded like a GCSE* class after taking their mocks, not a leadership conference, and already lines were being drawn. The ones proudly stating they “got a 10” thought they were at the top of the class, the brainiacs, the Best Leaders, while I could sense the ones who had scored low were already sinking back into themselves in shame. At that point, I realised I may be about to burst some bubbles in the room when I explained that a ten in mental toughness - in a leadership role - may not be the best score depending on what you and the organisation was trying to achieve. Let me explain… In a local authority on the outskirts of Liverpool, England the decision was taken to support senior managers after a period of financial austerity and government cutbacks. Although the senior managers had come through this period and were still performing well, it had inevitably taken a toll on both the culture of the organisation and their resilience and well-being. The local authority felt it had been through a period of upheaval and wanted to support senior managers in developing them not only in their technical abilities but in leading an essential cultural change programme. As part of a senior manager development programme, following this period of upheaval, all managers completed a mental toughness questionnaire (at the start of the programme) and had the results sent directly to them. This was for them to use as part of their regular catch ups with their managers and as part of the appraisal programme. We wanted to give managers at that senior level in the organisation 19

a tool to support them with some self-reflection on not only what they did, but their behavioural and attitudinal traits in achieving their organisational goals. They all completed a development module called Integrated Resilience Leadership. This was based on an Integrated Resilience Programme (2016) that a colleague Ken Harrison, who was an Area Relationship Director in the local authority and had many years’ experience both with communities, partners and the local authority workforce and I developed. Our research in developing this model was taken from working with partners such as part of the UK National Health Service (community support) Public Health, Schools, Police, Social Enterprises and Community groups. We worked alongside these organisations in providing resources for them to utilise various ways of building community resilience. Following a couple of years of practice in the field we brought three hundred representatives of the organisations together and posed an important question; “What have you found most useful in achieving tangible change in the communities and what tools will you continue to use after the pilot is complete?”. Three tools were mentioned more than any of the others. ▪ Mental Toughness Practice ▪ Restorative Practice and ▪ Mindfulness Practice And something immediately stood out to us about them - these were all practices that had to be consistently applied to reap the benefits. What would happen if we pulled together all these practices and created an Integrated Resilience model with Emotional intelligence (Goleman D. 1995) at the heart of it, we 20

wondered? Thus, the Integrated Resilience Leadership model (Harrison K. and Keegan M. 2016) was born. We believed that this model could be applied to organisations and leaders as much as it could to community groups in supporting a resilient and mentally strong workforce. In challenging economic times (post-pandemic is probably going to be as tough as it gets in some industries), we know that staff feel under pressure, whether it is because of more demanding targets, the fact their own jobs may be under threat or generally being asked to do more with less. Over the past decade, organisations like ours have tried many different programmes, initiatives, and training to meet the growing and changing need. As we had done. Some had started introducing the concept of mental toughness by introducing the language of strengths and resilience-based programmes. Others are benefitting from the gift of mindfulness through stillness meditation and present moment awareness, whilst others have introduced restorative practices building stronger individual team and organisational relationships. Intuitively Mental Toughness, Restorative Practice and Mindfulness sit together, not alongside each other as independent strategies, but enmeshed in philosophy practice and outcomes. Each of these approaches has scientific research to indicate higher levels of connectedness, emotional wellbeing, and lower levels of feelings of isolation reducing the impact of poor mental health risk factors. There is also good evidence that the approaches enable individuals to achieve higher levels and better results/ outcomes. 21

We knew this was a model we wanted to take forward with our senior managers as part of a development strategy. Fig. 2: The Integrated Resilience Model (KMBC, 2016) As you see from the diagram above all three aspects that make up Integrated Resilience leadership overlap with emotional intelligence at the heart of all 3 practices. These are practices (not theories) as all three require constant attention and practice if we are to master them. We do not go to the gym once and expect to achieve fitness, the same can be said of mental toughness, mindfulness, and restorative practice. To achieve the desired benefits, these must be practised consistently. Individually, each of these initiatives offers great support to transform organisational culture and integration, as part of a leadership programme. However, when implemented as part of a complete strategy the benefits seem to be multiplied. The aim was to ignite interest in exploring current practice, promoting explicit teaching of each approach, identifying challenges, ultimately encouraging a broadening of the view of 22

pastoral and wellbeing programmes becoming holistic philosophies becoming embedded within organisations. Each senior manager received a day’s training on the 3 aspects of the integrated resilience model and explored what tools they could use to develop practices that supported them in their resilience and in embedding the approach as part of the culture of the organisation. The training consisted of exploring their results from the Mental Toughness Questionnaire (MTQ48) and having a chance to reflect on what this was telling them that they were not currently aware of and what they wanted to do about it. As mentioned earlier, this was the point when they had the realisation that scoring a “10” across the board in mental toughness as a leader in a public sector organisation brings its own challenges. Scoring a ten on the MTQ48 will certainly mean that you will achieve your goals but whether you will bring people with you and inspire others is less clear. One particularly self-aware “10 scoring” senior manager realised as a result of this training, that he needed to understand that not everyone found it as easy as him to make tough decisions (such as cuts and redundancies in services to achieve budget savings). Others realised (despite scoring an acceptable level of 6 on commitment) that even though they were committed to achieving their goals, maybe they did not always stick to them because they liked to move onto the next shiny new project that came. Each individual had a different lesson from the MTQ48 reports that they received. Some more mentally sensitive senior 23

managers benefitted from tools to control their anxiety such as grounding and positive self-talk. Others who lacked attentional control practised methods such as the number grid or mind gym games (‘wordle’ is a great one) to help them practise focusing without interruption. The diagram below demonstrated how the 3 overlapping practices are mapped across using the 4 quadrants for emotional intelligence. Fig. 3: Emotional Intelligence (Goleman D., 1995) as part of the Integrated Resilience Model (Harrison K. and Keegan M. 2016) The next part of the programme explored mindfulness. The neurological benefits of mindfulness have been linked to an increase in emotional intelligence (N Jiménez-Picón · 2021) specifically empathy (RPR Centeno · 2020) and self-regulation (Guendelman S. et al., 2017). 24

It is the development of these areas that contributes to our ability to manage conflict and communicate more effectively. Mindfulness also enables us to take a step back and consider alternative perspectives rather than simply reacting to events. Mindfulness helps put us back in control of our emotions, enabling us to choose a more appropriate response. We trained Senior Managers on how to achieve a 3-minute mindfulness experience (surely, we all can spare 3 minutes a day to improve our mental wellbeing). This consisted of spending one minute bringing their attention to the breath and breathing intentionally. The second minute was mindfulness of the body, mindfully scanning their body from their feet to their head. The last minute was spent in mindfulness of movement. Mindful movement practice is designed to connect the breath, body, and mind. They were trained to stand with their feet hip distance apart with knees unlocked and slowly raising both arms till they have a small arch in their back then staying in that position for a few seconds then slowly returning their arms up over their head forward then back to their sides. We asked them to do this every day for a 28-day mindfulness exercise and record their feelings, emotions, thoughts and or sensations in a diary. For the first 7 days doing it once a day, for the next 14 days doing 2 x 3 minutes a day and for the last 7 days doing it 3 times a day. The last part of the integrated resilience programme was concerned with Restorative Practice. Restorative approaches in the workplace deal with conflict creatively, building stronger teams. When conflict happens and/or people are hurt in the workplace, relationships are broken, and teams suffer. 25

Below is a model of restorative leadership which demonstrates that a high performing team needs both high challenge and high support. Fig. 4: Restorative model Senior Managers were trained on the restorative leadership model as well as an idea called perceptual positions. This looks at a situation from our own view, from the other persons and a natural observer. Which provides multiple perspectives in order to make alternative choices or repair a relationship. They also learnt about restorative questions i.e. ▪ What happened? ▪ Where were your thoughts at the time? ▪ What have your thoughts been since? ▪ How has this affected you and others? ▪ What has been the hardest thing for you? ▪ What do you think needs to happen next? 26

A restorative question will never have a “Why” in it as this puts the recipient into a defensive mode. This approach is about restoring and repairing a relationship not apportioning blame. At the end of the training each participant developed their own action plan using the tools at their disposal from the MTQ48, mindfulness exercises and restorative practices. We would meet after a month with the managers who had been on the programme utilising an action learning set approach. The feedback was fascinating with some participants who had been very sceptical about mindfulness, reporting how it now made them stop and think before responding and it was now part of their daily practice. As with any leadership development programme it is awareness, followed by action that makes a difference to both the culture and performance of the organisation. Little did we know at the time of delivering this programme that a pandemic would be upon us in the next couple of years which would introduce a fresh set of threats and challenges. We are confident that the Integrated Resilience leadership programme supported managers with these challenges whilst delivering front line services throughout the pandemic and as we moved to recovery. 27

3 CULTURE AND ORGANISATIONAL DESIGN USING THE 4CS MENTAL TOUGHNESS CONCEPT AND MTQ MEASURES Craig Hamer In chapter 2 we explored how the 4Cs Mental Toughness concept, and the specific use of the Mental Toughness Questionnaire (MTQ), can be used within an integrated and multi factorial management development programme. It discussed how, through enhanced self-awareness, combined with complimentary skill development, this helped people to become more effective at leading their people and their organisations. In this chapter I will attempt to extend this perspective, looking at how we can use the concepts of mindset, mental toughness, and the associated MTQ measure to help organisations better understand performance in their businesses and how they can actively start to shape the challenging and fluid concept of organisational culture. I will share how we have started to apply these concepts and tools to support culture and organisational design initiatives. I originally came to the concept of mental toughness to try to understand more clearly why some organisations and individuals are excited by, and thrive, in the complex and ambiguous world of change, whilst others flounder and struggle. I was clear in my mind that this was essentially a mindset challenge – and whilst I accepted the foundational causes of such mindset differences may be multifaceted – I had a curiosity to understand if more insight may help me deliver change faster, and more effectively. 28

However, there was one area of my work, where I stumbled across potentially a greater value add. This was around culture and organisational design. I will attempt to explain how the mental toughness concept, and more specifically the MTQPlus measure can become a useful lens through which we can explore those invisible and intangible things that: ▪ make people feel comfortable or uncomfortable, ▪ make people engage or disengage, feel connected or disconnected – and, ultimately, ▪ enable people to excel and perform or to create frustration and friction? The answer is always going to be complex and multi-faceted, and I acknowledge there is no one right way. But if we can find a means by which we can make the vague, fluid, and invisible concept of culture feel a little more real, then we can start to think about how we can manage, measure, and shape it. The challenge of culture Given the importance of culture it is surprising that comparatively, so little is written about it. A simple search on Amazon's bookstore highlights this nicely. In April 2022 Amazon yielded the following results: Search Term: Yielded Results: Leadership Books Over 60,000 Business Strategy Over 60,000 Organisational Culture Over 3,000 Whilst accepting the search results will somewhat be impacted by the specific terms used to search – what appears 29

clear is that significantly less is written on the subject of organisational culture, than on the subject of leadership and business strategy. This is somewhat curious particularly given that many senior executives now accept that ‘culture eats strategy for breakfast’ [1]. Furthermore, history provides evidence that leadership success is not universal – it is often dependent upon environment and context (or in other words - culture) and even more so, the way these interplay. In his book ‘Business Culture Design’ (Sagmeister, 2016), Simon Sagmeister tackles this idea of culture being ‘invisible’. He references the iceberg model popularised by Edgar Schein. Fig. 5: Schein’s iceberg model of culture Above the water are the visible manifestations of the culture. However, everything that happens at the tip of the iceberg has its causes in the deep. Consequently, if you want to get a grip on corporate culture, you must dive under the water – where the strongest driving forces of behaviour can be found. 30

The challenge being this is the invisible zone – where things are hard to see and grasp. Further complexity arises as organisations may have multiple cultures dynamically operating at the same time in the same organisation. Sagmeister argues that whenever people come together cultures form, and the more intensely they work together the stronger the culture becomes. As such we can observe that different teams within an organisation may have a culture particular to them, multiple teams working together will then create a ‘department’ or ‘business unit’ culture, different business units on geographic sites may create a ‘site specific culture’ and collectively all these teams, business units and sites will come together to create the organisational culture. So, the challenge is clear: How could we possibly analyse, define, and start to align all of these cultures to drive organisational results. This is complicated further when we consider the significant drivers of the culture are not visible and often not measurable. MTQPlus: A useful ‘insight’ measure for culture In the introductory chapter some useful definitions of organisational culture are provided. The definition I most often use in my work is the one provided by one of the leading thinkers on culture, Geert Hofstede. He describes culture as: ” The collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from others” (Hofstede, 2011) 31

The essence of the quote here for me is this concept of ‘the collective programming of the mind.’ If we accept that this is a useable definition of culture, then by extension the use of the MTQPlus psychometric measure becomes a credible option. After all, the MTQPlus attempts to measure how people think across eight different facets. This therefore provides a useful means by which we can: ▪ Measure how the individual thinks ▪ Compare how the individuals in a group think, and therefore create a collective view ▪ Identify potential elements of conflict or lack of ‘fit’ between individuals and/or teams To be clear –the MTQPlus is not designed to be a measure of culture. The assertion here is that the MTQPlus is a useful ‘proxy’ for exploring and analysing ‘the collective programming of the mind’ and therefore making visible certain cultural facets which have traditionally been thought to be ‘invisible.’ The examples and cases I use come from a range of clients in a number of different sectors including Retail, Manufacturing, Professional Services and Education. In all cases the same approach has been used – which I detail here. Further to this I will try to highlight some of the more interesting insights I have identified, and specific actions taken to address potential issues where they may have been identified. An approach to Culture and Organisational Design using MTQPlus. When working with teams and organisations I always work hard to separate the elements of the programme – particularly the concept of mental toughness, the MTQPlus measure and how 32

the measure can provide an insight into culture. The approach has four elements: 1. Sample via the MTQPlus psychometric measure 2. Deliver an interactive team workshop to introduce the concepts of mental toughness and mindset to the organisation or team 3. Undertake 1-1 coaching debriefs for team members around their individual MTQPlus results 4. Facilitate a culture workshop: A follow up workshop to use the insights gained from stages 1-3 to start to shape the cultural transformation desired/required. I will provide a quick overview and rationale for each of these four steps before sharing some of the insights I have gained from the range of teams and organisations I have engaged with, and how the insights have driven activities. A. Sampling with the MTQPlus The key cornerstone of the programme is the use of the MTQPlus measure. This provides the data which I use to inform the subsequent work. It is important therefore that the client is willing to ask staff to undertake the questionnaire, and staff are open enough to engage with it. The sampling takes place in advance of the team workshop so that we can review the data in advance of the workshop to analyse and sense check with other data points any particularly interesting variances or outcomes. When undertaking the sampling we follow these basic principles: a. Staff do not have to undertake the MTQPlus - it is their choice 33

b. Individual results will not be shared with anyone except that individual c. In the group workshop we only ever reference aggregated data sets which are anonymised d. Everyone who undertakes the MTQPlus will receive their individual report and the opportunity to have a confidential 45-60min coaching debrief around their individual results. The principles are often communicated in advance of the programme to help mitigate concerns and nervousness about potential motivations of employers and worry about ‘good’ or ‘bad’ results individually. We try to not provide too much information about the programme in advance except to frame it as a ‘personal development’ opportunity with a brief pre-recorded message from myself to build trust and confidence. Participants are normally given a 2-week window to respond. This provides them flexibility, whilst creating a reasonably contained period to enable the client and I to focus and follow- up. B. Interactive Team Workshop Post sampling, we then bring together the team/organisation at an interactive workshop. The workshop lasts anywhere between 3 & 6 hours and is designed to be a developmental workshop for the delegates. The workshop has two objectives: 1. to present the concept of mental toughness and mindset to participants and help them understand the importance of mindset and helpful thinking, 34

2. share the initial team/group results and start to discuss and analyse some of the key insights. The first part of the workshop introduces the concept of mental toughness and mindset through an interactive exploration of the 4Cs – Control, Commitment, Challenge and Confidence. We explore the importance of each of the 4Cs in shaping both individual and group thinking, and the resultant impact this may have on behaviour. Our aim is to develop an appreciation and understanding that there is no ‘good’ and ‘bad’ within the mental toughness concept. Simply that different levels of sensitivity to pressure and stress will generate different behaviours. The key for delegates is to understand that if they are conscious of their thinking and sensitivities, they can start to moderate these behaviours. The objective of moderating our behaviour is simply to deliver better outcomes. All of us, at any one time will need to be moderating behaviour to optimise the outcome. The second part of the workshop takes a deeper dive into the group outcomes of the MTQPlus sampling. Building on the more developed understanding of the 4Cs from the morning we explore how the ‘collective view’ of the groups thinking profile may impact different performance and cultural facets. In particular we explore: ▪ How the group score compares to a global average - so are they above or below average on any given dimension and the potential impact on performance 35

▪ What the distribution of the scores were – to identify if we have a normal distribution around a particular score, or if we have a more polarised group of scores ▪ Differences between different teams, groups, or grades across the team/organisation – to identify where alignment and conflict may arise. It is worth noting that I often also analyse data by gender, and potentially also by ethnicity to identify if any ‘diversity & equality’ bias can be identified. Given the sensitivity of such data this is rarely shared in the group workshop initially. This data is often used to shape thinking around some of the cultural work undertaken in stage 4 of the approach. C. 1-1 Coaching debriefs Individual participants receive their personalised MTQPlus reports back prior to the workshop. Throughout the workshop they get to develop a better and more nuanced understanding of their personal results. There has been however little opportunity until this point to help them contextualise their results against the team/organisational results and provide some personalised development advice. Failing to provide 1-1 coaching debriefs can lead individuals to unnecessarily worry about their own individual scores and misunderstanding on how their own results relate to the wider team and organisational scores. As such it is a requirement for organisations to provide the opportunity for 1-1 debriefs to all participants. These debriefs are delivered by coaches trained in the MTQPlus measure – though this may be an internal coaching team (for larger organisations) or through my external team (for smaller clients). 36

One observation here is that in larger organisations, senior staff still tend to prefer having an external coach deliver the debrief even if an internal mental toughness coach is available. This highlights the fact that people remain sensitive about their ‘individual’ scores, and who will have access to these scores. Culture Workshop Programmes which are targeted and designed purely for staff development may finish after the 1-1 briefings, with occasional follow up workshops and coaching sessions where required. Increasingly however we are now using the outcomes from the MTQPlus to test and explore the organisation's culture. If we accept that the MTQPlus is a reliable and valid measure of how an individual thinks, then by extension it can provide an insight on the dominant thinking patterns of a group. It can provide a useful lens through which this can be examined, and therefore a data point to reflect upon. To start the cultural analysis, we use the team/group/organisational MTQPlus data sets to create some cultural hypothesis, by looking at the key insights. Example hypothesis could be: ▪ ‘Social confidence succeeds here’: if we see unusually high levels of interpersonal confidence) ▪ ‘Ideas trump execution’: if we see low scores on achievement orientation and above average scores on Risk orientation and Confidence in Abilities ▪ ‘Leaders leave ambiguity’: where we see low scores around goal orientation in the senior leadership. 37

To test these hypotheses, we then use secondary data and evidence sources to better validate, or on occasion, invalidate the hypothesis. Secondary data sources may include: ▪ 360-degree feedback ▪ Staff survey data ▪ Specially developed cultural questionnaires ▪ Identification of visual manifestations (articulated values, observable behaviours and approaches, physical layout of organisational space etc.) Once a number of credible hypotheses have been created, we use these to shape conversations in an interactive ‘culture workshop.’ The workshop audience and size can vary based upon client wishes – on occasion this workshop is just for senior leaders (particularly if the data set has some challenging outcomes). We will often run it for an entire team or business unit. Our intention in using hypotheses is to provide a safe and less contentious way to shape conversations which may otherwise prove difficult to manage - highly emotive or contentious. The desired outcome is to leave the workshop with 2 or 3 agreed hypotheses that can form the basis of a progressive and active programme of activity to shape a more productive cultural environment. This often results in organisations and teams reviewing organisational policies, operational processes and developing training programmes/interventions to improve the skills and behaviours within the workforce. It is important to note that such culture change initiatives should not be considered as a project. The organisational culture continues to be a dynamic and fluid concept and needs to be continuously measured and evaluated. 38

Whilst such initiatives may start with a degree of ‘project structure’ to them, for them to deliver the long-term benefits desired they need to become a programme of continuous review, reflection and conscious consideration moving forwards. Such an iterative approach demonstrates further the strengths of the MTQPlus measure in supporting such initiatives. The normative distribution and 1-10 scale of the MTQPlus measure provide a useful underpinning measure to understand and measure both the impact of an initiative, and the effectiveness of particular interventions, on an ongoing basis. In general, we try to re-assess teams every 12 months, providing an interesting set of comparative data sets. Insights and Application In this chapter so far, I hope to have provided a rational articulation of why and how we can use the concepts of mental toughness, attitude, and mindset, and more specifically the MTQPlus questionnaire, as tools to help identify, diagnose, and develop elements of organisational culture. Let us now explore some examples of the type of insights and interventions I have experienced over the last few years. Team Dynamics & Conflict Situation: I was introduced to a team where there was a concern that the culture had become a little adversarial between the leadership and some of the staff in the team. The team operated in a competitive sales environment and needed to be customer focussed, and responsive. 39

It was agreed to use the MTQPlus to see if it would provide any insights. Below are the profiles of the team leader, and a typical profile of one of the team members. Fig. 6: MTQPlus profiles of the team leader, and a typical profile of one of the team members Insight: The above profiles provided a fascinating insight about why the culture had become somewhat adversarial, despite the team members having very similar overall mental toughness scores. Can you see why? The challenge here was the variation in scores in specific facets. Let us look at the leader first: This was a very commercially aware individual, motivated by targets (high commitment scores), happy to try new approaches (high risk orientation) and not afraid to call people out and hold people to account (high interpersonal confidence). All apparently great assets for a sales leader I am sure you would agree. 40